The Daughter of Time 2: The Second Half No One Asked For
by Psychotic Yandere
Summary: The sequel to a former fanfiction by me titled The Daughter of Time 1: The Son of Evil; that was for the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, while this is for the Heroes of Olympus series. Rated M for extreme language, sexual reference, and overall inappropriateness. This one's actually got effort put into it. Sometimes.
1. Chapter 0 (Prologue)

**Okay, so in the prologue of the first "Daughter of Time" I talked about a group of people. Well, I've changed that up a bit. There were four people. One was Lily, one was Sam, who didn't speak, Hale, who was the one Lily was talking to, and Olivia, who was the girl talking to Hale after Lily left. So, yeah, that's that. Also, FUCK YEAH, IT'S 2017! We can finally be done with that shit called 2016.**

 **Third-Person P.O.V.**

Olivia and Hale were doing… something… somewhere. I'm uncreative.

"So, when do you plan on going there?" Olivia said.

"Probably on August 1st of their world," Hale said.

"Lily's going to be really mad at you for that," Olivia said

"You're not going to change my mind," Hale said. "No matter when I go there, she'll be really pissed."

 **How bad could it be?**

"Have you ever had your head shot off, Psychotic Yandere?" Hale asked.

 **Nope, can't say I have.**

"Well, I'll tell you this then, it hurts like a bitch. And Lily has done that to me so many times I've lost count. I'm not looking forward to experiencing it again."

 **You can nullify any pain you feel. And you can't "lose count" of something either.**

"Now, now. Let's not be so nitpicky."

 **Let's not be so fourth-wall-breaky.**

"You're breaking it too."

 **I'm pushing it back up; your talking pushes it down, and I'm on the other side, talking it back up.**

"You sound like an insane person."

"You're one to talk," Olivia said.

"Touche," Hale replied. "Although, they haven't said I'm wrong."

 **Psychotic is in my name.**

"Stop making good points!" Hale whined.

 **Stop making it so easy.**

"Can you end this yet?" Olivia asked.

 **I mean, the entire reason for this prologue was accomplished, like, 23 sentences ago, so sure.**


	2. Chapter 1 (The Lost Hero: 1)

_**Chapter 1**_

 **Skip to page 30**

 **Jason's P.O.V… in third person (these books are weird)**

"The guy with one shoe," said the bald dude. "He's the answer."

"No, Butch," the girl insisted. "He can't be. I was tricked." She glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. "What do you want from me?" she screamed. "What have you done with him?"

"Yelling at the sky won't bring him back, Annabeth; in fact, you won't see him for quite a while." A golden-haired girl seemed to pop out of nowhere and seemed to be addressing the girl. "I recommend you bring them to camp quickly; they are quite powerful, they'll probably attract a lot of monsters." **Good thing this isn't a hentai.**

The first girl fumed for a moment. "Fine." She fixed Jason with a resentful look. "We'll settle this later."

She turned on her heel and marched toward the chariot.

Piper shook her head. "What's _her_ problem? What's going on?"

"Seriously," Leo agreed.

"We have to get you out of here," Butch said. "I'll explain on the way."

"I'm not going anywhere with _her_." Jason gestured toward the blonde. "She looks like she wants to kill me."

"If she's the only reason you're not going with her, you better go with her; she'll be much easier to defeat if she did try to kill you. And trying to kill a primordial god is a much harder than killing a demigod. A child of Athena is especially easy to kill if you can blow her head off with a blast of lightning. She's skilled in combat and is extremely intelligent, but she can't really call upon any powers like you three can. The name's Lily Silver; I'll see you back at the camp! Let's hope Annabeth doesn't try to kill me for saying all that!" she said before she vanished in a flash of silver light.

"Um… okay," Butch said after a second. "But you gotta cut Annabeth some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem."

 **Skip to page 37 (Nothing big happens, but I feel like it'll help me determine what Lily's goddamn personality is [it's really hard to do this stuff])**

 **Piper's P.O.V third person (that's going to get old fast)**

Piper stepped forward, ready to smack her, but Annabeth said, "Piper, stop." **Wait, when did Annabeth learn their names? (At this point, I'm just turning into CinemaSins for books. What would that be called?)**

"You shouldn't introduce yourself to them by beating them up; however, Drew," I heard the voice of Lily, who appeared in the crowd suddenly, "I'm not a big fan of people who pretend to be more important than they are, and group everyone else into a group that's less than them." Lily walked forward, and what looked like an actual sword appeared in her hand. "Now who," she started as she continued to walk towards Drew, who was shrinking back slightly, "do you think I might be talking about? I'll give you the answer, because you're probably so focused on how Jason looks that you weren't listening. I'm talking about you."

Lily held the sword up to Drew's throat. When she attempted to back away, metal things came up from the ground and locked her in place.

"Those three will become some of the greatest heroes to ever exist. All you can say about yourself is that you're a pretty piece of crap who has never, and _will_ never do anything heroic. Looks aren't everything, unlike what you, Deadpool, and every other teenager thinks. Unless you really feel like seducing every enemy you have to face." Lily's sword vanished and she moved her hand back down and walked away; the restraints holding Drew in place vanished. When people around Lily backed away from her as she walked away, she closed her eyes and sighed.

"Unless you've done something to piss me off, I won't do that kind of thing to you, and I only get mad easily if someone is the worst type of person."

Then she vanished in a flash of silver light.

 **Skip to page 83**

 **Leo's 3** **rd** **person P.O.V.**

 **The guides explained the whole Lily/Sam deal to the people, I'm just too nervous of making the characters go too O.C., so I'll let you picture it.**

He extended his fingers and felt them tingle, liking they were waking up―pins and needles. **Gotta say, I still love putting that MOTHERFUCKING dash in.** Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm.

"I'm surprised you can still create those so easily after so long." Leo extinguished the flame in his hand and turned to the voice.

"Sorry," Lily said, " I guess I should see if my teleporting can make noise so that I don't surprise people as often."

"You said you knew that I hadn't used that in a long time," Leo said. "How did you know that?"

Lily walked up, stood next to him, and looked around the… I'm not sure what to call it, but I think it's basically just a workshop. Then she said, "I assume Will told you about my story?"

"Yeah. It might've been been the weirdest thing I'd heard all day."

Lily giggled at that, then replied with, "Yeah, it is pretty weird. I'm honestly surprised that people believed it." She sighed. "Well, before I, and Sam too, came to this world, my brother, Hale, basically gave us all the information about what happens in the original version of this timeline, where we aren't here."

"Huh?"

She sighed again and muttered, "Man, I really need to keep it stupid, don't I?" She spoke up again. "My brother gave Sam and I the memories/knowledge of what happened in this world without us."

"You're not good at explaining things, but I think I sort of understand it. Although I'm not sure how your brother can do that."

"My brother is only my brother through my mother, and technically even THAT isn't totally true. Also, I'm not bad at explaining things, I'm just bad at explaining things to people who aren't from my world.

"That's basically the same thing," he replied.

 **This is random! I just realized giving people this link means fewer views on my shit on the other site! Shit!**

"You know, if you didn't have a pretty crappy life, I'd hate you a lot for that personality; one extremely annoying male is far too many for me to handle," Lily said. **If you ask me, just about every male is annoying. Including Jason from this series. I mean, seriously, he's such a damn pretty boy; he and Piper are Riordan's worst demigod protagonist characters. Leo's fucking awesome, though.** "We should head to dinner." She grabbed his shoulder. "This may be a little disorienting."

Leo saw a bright flash of light, then saw a new scene appear in front of him. **(They teleported to the dining area [or whatever the shit it's called].)**

"You should probably hurry up," she said while walking away **(to her cabin [she eats there {people weren't very happy she worked with Kronos}])**. "Your siblings might get worried."

 **HOLY SHIT. I've been away from this for so long. My last edit was January 7** **th** **. Today is February 17** **th** **. Well then… sorry, I guess.**

 **Skip to page 188**

"It―has wings," Nyssa stammered. Her jaw looked like it might drop off her face. **That stupid fucking dash is a great way to start this back up!**

"Yeah!" Leo said. "I found them and reattached them."

"But it never had wings. Where did you find them?"

Leo hesitated, and Piper could tell he was hiding something. **Gee, really?**

"In… the woods," he said. "Repaired his circuits, too, mostly, so no more problems with him going haywire."

"Mostly?" Nyssa asked.

The dragon's head twitched. It tilted to one side and a stream of black liquid―maybe oil, _hopefully_ just oil―poured out its ear, all over Leo.

"Just a few kinks to work out," Leo said.

"But how did you survive…?" Nyssa was still staring at the creature in awe. "I mean, the fire breath…"

A very bright flash of silver came from one of roofs of the cabins as she said this; Lily appeared in after it disappeared, looking well over half asleep.

"Crap," she said. Another flash of silver came off her and off of a spot on the ground, which she then appeared at before slowing getting up and yawning. "Never been too good at aiming that when I'm tired." She touched her head with her forefinger, then jumped up a bit **(she lightly zapped herself)** , now clearly awake.

Piper, Leo, and Jason all seemed pretty surprised by all of this, but the other campers looked in mild surprise; they seemed to have seen this kind of thing before, but still weren't used to it.

She just seemed to be noticing the dragon, and didn't even seem a little bit surprised by it. "I'm not sure what I find weirder," she said, looking at Leo, "the fact that you randomly named him Festus, or that said random name translates from Latin into 'happy.'"

Jason looked at Leo and asked, "You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?"

The dragon twitched and shuddered and flapped its wings.

"That's a yes, bro!" Leo said. **In what way? Also, "bro," really?** "Now, um, I'd really suggest we get going, guys. I already picked up some supplies in the―um, in the woods. And all the people with weapons are making Festus nervous." **Who programs the emotion of nervousness into a goddamn mechanical dragon?**

Jason frowned. "But we haven't planned anything yet. We can't just―"

"You know where you need to go," Lily told him. "I'd say that's at least 25% of a plan. And that's over twice the amount of a plan that Star-Lord said he had, and everything worked almost perfectly for him. So I say we're ready to go."

"Who is Sta-wait, what do you mean, 'we'?"

One of the campers turned toward Lily. "You can't just go on a quest whenever you feel like it!"

"Technically speaking, I'm not going on the quest." Lily said. "I'm just taking a trip to take care of some stuff; which happens to be helping them. In case you forgot, I'm not actually a camper here, so I can do what I want. It's cool with you, right, Jason?"

"Um…" Jason seemed to have no clue how to respond.

"No objections; alright, let's go! We only have three days."

Piper looked at Annabeth, who just shrugged. Guess Lily was coming with them.

* * *

 **(Line Break)**

* * *

Flying on the dragon was the most amazing experience ever, Piper thought. **Really? I thought a fly somewhere in the area was thinking that.**

Up high, the air was freezing cold, but the dragon's metal hide generated so much heat that it was like they were flying in a protective bubble. **Then how do you know it's so cold?** Talk about seat warmers! **I'm starting to remember why I didn't like this book too much.** And the groves in the dragon's back were designed like high-tech saddles, so they weren't uncomfortable at all. Leo showed them how to hook their feet in the chinks of the armor, like in stirrups, and use the lever safety harnesses cleverly concealed under the exterior plating. Aside from Lily, they sat single file: Leo in front, then Piper, then Jason, and Piper was very aware of Jason right behind her. She wished he would hold on to her, maybe wrap his arms around her waist; sadly he didn't. **Seriously, Riordan, why did you decide to make a daughter of Aphrodite? Not to mention I feel like she acts like a combination of Hera and Aphrodite; I'm pretty sure most children of Aphrodite would do nothing but cheat on their S.O.'s. And, of course, as I bet some of you know, but I'll say it for those who don't, S.O. stands for "Slutty Olaf," the world's greatest Halloween costume.**

Lily wasn't actually riding on the dragon, but flying next to it. As we were leaving, she teleported from the dragon to her home and back almost right afterwards, and she had been putting on a something that looked like a silver box with straps. After she finished putting it on, the straps seemed to adjust themselves to just right size, and then silver wings folded out of the box and… it was basically just a jetpack with wings coming out of it. The wings seemed to magnetize to her arms; Piper recalled she had been told Lily could control metal. Lily jumped up and started hovering; she acted like she hadn't done it before, or it had at least been a long time since she'd done it. **That's an unavoidable innuendo.** She appeared to stabilize and seemed to think everything was good. "Alright, time to go!" she said to Jason, Leo, and Piper, who were staring in shock (along with everyone else there).

"How―" Leo started.

"You fixed a dragon with just some stuff in the woods, and you question how I can have something like this?" she said.

"I was also gonna ask why I didn't make that."

Lily laughed. "Well, I'm sure you can probably figure something out with all that stuff in the woods," she said, winking at him when she said "stuff in the woods."

Leo's eyes widened a bit, but he just moved on from the topic. Piper thought Lily might know something that Leo didn't expect, maybe _want_ anybody to know about. "Well, let's hurry then," he said.

"Indeed," Lily said before shooting into the sky at ridiculous speeds, leaving them a bit stunned.

* * *

 **Okay, flashback over.**

* * *

Leo used the reigns to steer the dragon into the sky like he'd been doing it all his life. The metal wings worked perfectly, and soon the coast of Long Island was just a hazy line behind them. They shot over Connecticut and climbed into the gray winter clouds.

Leo grinned back at them. "Cool, right?"

"What if we get spotted?" Piper asked.

"The Mist," Jason said. "It keeps mortals from seeing magic things. **I think you mean supernatural things, but whatever.** If they spot us, they'll probably mistake us for a small plane or something."

Piper glanced over her shoulder. "You sure about that?"

"No," he admitted. Then Piper saw he was clutching a photo in his hands―a picture of a girl with dark hair.

She gave Jason a quizzical look, but he blushed **Why?** and put the photo in his pocket. "We're making good time. Probably get there by tonight."

Piper wondered who the girl in the picture was, but she didn't want to ask; and if Jason didn't volunteer the information **For whatever reason** , that wasn't a good sign. Had he remembered something about his life before? Was that a photo of his real girlfriend? **Jesus, this one's gonna become a yandere, isn't she? (I love how that's coming from Psychotic Yandere.)**

Stop it, she thought. You'll just torture yourself.

She asked a safer question. "Where are we heading?"

"To find the god of the North Wind," Jason said. "And chase some storm spirits."

Lily glided over towards us. "See, you had part of a plan."

"You seem really optimistic about him having only part of a plan," Piper said.

"Well, to be fair, my brother doesn't even come up with plans; he comes up with just a general idea of something, then does it however he pleases. It's always worked in the end, so I see no reason to be pessimistic."

"I get the feeling you and your brother are somewhat… different, to say the least," Jason said.

"Well, that seemed very obvious to me. I mean, I'm the half-blooded daughter of Kronos and he's older than Uranus. That's not very usual, even by a demigod's standards," she said before moving away from us a ways.

"I'm not the only one who heard her say her brother is older than the one of the planets, right?" Leo asked.

"I think she meant the god Uranus," Jason said.

"I'm not sure which of those would be weirder," Piper said.

* * *

 **(Line Break)**

* * *

 **Alrighty, I think almost 3,000 words is plenty, don't you? Next chapter won't actually be the next chapter, but I'll explain it then.**


	3. Chapter 1-and-a-Half

_**Chapter 1.5-ish**_

 **ALRIGHT (shit caps lock [I'm not changing it]), so, I got some reviews by a person (7 of my 13 reviews are by him [over 50%... that's kind of ridiculous]) and he made me think a bit. You may be wondering: "What did it make you think about?" or you may not; I don't know how you weirdos work. Anyway, it made me think I should try to expand a bit more on Lily's character. It also made me realize I should not skip as much in the books. So now I'll probably occasionally put in a chapter like this based around her/ what she does/what her house is like/bit of backstory. Also, (I swear I'm almost done.) after finishing this fanfiction/series/thing, I kind of want to do it again, except I would change the world, and the main O.C. BUT, here's where I'm hitting a bit of a roadblock; the stories I want to do this kind of thing for are… well, they're light novels. Japanese light novels. The kind of thing many anime are based on. The problem is pretty simple: I don't know if any of my current readers would read those, or if they'd move on from my works and I'd pull in a new audience who wouldn't want to read the P.J./H.O. fanfiction(s). If people could tell me what they think about this, I'd highly appreciate it. LAST THING, I SWEAR. Am I the only one who finds it exceptionally unusual that, on the first fanfiction, I have almost 8,200 views total, yet have 27 reviews, favorites, and follows COMBINED? I'm not trying to sound like "Oh, no, I'm not popular, pity me," but it seems… very weird. Okay, we can FINALLY get to the FUCKING chapter!**

* * *

 **(Insert space here)**

* * *

 **Lily's F.P. P.O.V.**

 **I'm just gonna say this is what she did during the prologue.**

 **Okay, I'm sorry, but I just looked up the meaning of the name "Lily," and one of things that came up was on Urban Dictionary; it was fucking hilarious.**

I woke up in my bed in my house, just like any other day, but today I felt like showing myself around the place. I can't imagine why. **Yeah, me neither.** Shut up, you. Anyway, I got out of my super basic bed (everything is white aside from the silver blankets. **You guys starting to see a pattern yet?** Next to my bed was the golden nightstand **If you can't see any pattern at this point, you need help.** with a basic lamp, accompanied by a few books. **I bet those are for when she wants to play Call of Duty 4,593,593,926,584 on her PS8,495.** I looked over at my bookshelf, very simplistic, but it came in handy when you read as much as me. Mostly "fantasy" or "sci-fi" books, as they actually had a considerable amount of good fighting tips in them; I doubt the authors ever thought someone would use their books that way. I tried staying away from darker books; kind of depressing when you know that every book character actually does exist in another universe, and die whenever the author has them die. I don't get why you guys were given the rights to create and kill people at your desire.

Moving on, then we got my desktop (girls can game too [I never need to research stuff, so that's really I use it for]), which is on a desk **Duh.** along with my very comfortable chair. Then I have a silver couch, which is kind of just… there. I don't use it often. I also have a golden dresser against on the other side of my bed that doesn't have the nightstand, so yeah, that's a thing. That's basically it for that room; there's a bathroom connected to it, nothing special. There's also the door to the outside in this room, but still, nothing special. Then there's the… for the sake of my sanity, I'll just call it a gym for physical and supernatural exercise; hopefully that makes sense. It's connected to my room and is the room connecting my living space to Sam's room. In other words, we both have our own main room, bathroom, and share a "gym;" it's not much of a house.

I went over to his door and knocked. "It's unlocked," I heard him say.

"That's not why people knock on doors," I replied as I opened it and walked in.

"I mean, it could be." He was lying on his bed, doing something on a tablet or whatever. His room was essentially the same as mine, aside from the size and color scheme (and the fact that he has more places to sit and also has a T.V. with a ton of gaming systems). His room, much like his clothes, was darkly colored, mostly black. He was a lot like Hale in that sense. Although, Sam IS the son of Tartarus and was raised by a daughter of Erebus, so I guess it makes sense.

I sat down on one of the chairs in the room. "We really haven't talked much since you got here."

"You're right," he said, putting down the tablet-looking thing. **She doesn't use or really care about handheld devices like that, so she doesn't know what it is.** "How've you been?"

"Fine. Nice of you to ask." He flinched at my obvious frustration.

He cleared his throat, clearing wanting to move on. "So… um… I assume you got another prophecy for the next five books?"

"Way to make yourself sound confident about it."

"You'd think five years away from Hale would make your sass and sarcasm go down a bit," he said, sighing.

"I don't know about that; I wasn't really ever around everyone else."

"Aside from being in Kronos' army?" he asked with a smirk.

I scowled. "You know plenty well how much I hated doing that."

"Yeah, I can't imagine how hard it was to pretend you didn't care about killing anyone."

"I only had to kill the gods, and that's not as hard as killing something permanently; I also knew that Hale would let me rewind what had happened."

"I still think it's ironic that you are willing to blow out Hale's brain with a shotgun, even though if you're given the choice, you wouldn't kill anything," he said.

"Well, to be fair, that doesn't even come slightly close to killing him."

"So, you got the prophecy, right?" he asked.

"Yeah. It said this:

' _With little time left, the Child of Time turns to a chaotic brother,_

 _Different fathers, but borne of the same mother._

 _A hero slain, the Earth will shatter,_

 _Revenge taken by the one who controls matter._

 _The resurrected and the protected fail to win,_

 _Damage healed by a relationship forged from sin._

 _Lives returning from days far past,_

 _A great battle fought, but the war will end at last.'_ "

Sam thought about it for a bit, then said, "You know, I think I understand a lot of it, although I hope I'm wrong about a lot of it, but I don't get the line 'Lives returning from days far past' at all."

"Yeah, exact same for me."

"But, um… that first line bugs me. While you've been here, nothing has, you know, broken it?"

"No, it's undamaged." **Hell yeah, it's the pronoun game.**

"Then, make sure it's protected."

"I know, but… I don't think there's much of a chance of me preventing it."

We sat in silence for a bit before I asked him, "Do you know if anyone else will be coming here?"

"Hale said he would, he didn't me any definitive statements on Olivia or Alyssa, but he said the others would not be coming."

"Alright," I said. "Well, I think _The Lost Hero_ starts tomorrow, so I'll make sure I do stuff I wanna do today. Luckily, these books are one year total, instead of one per book, so this'll go a bit faster. **Not for me.** Would I be wrong to assume you're probably not going to do much during this series?"

"Hey, this is yours. If all goes well for the author, I'll be doing my own world at some point, and according to what Hale said, it'll involve Aaron and him going into Chaos."

"Of course it will," I said, standing up. "Which world is 'yours,' then?"

"The one with his favorite."

"Well, that would fit you, you are a problem child."

"To you, all of us are problem children aside from Alyssa and Olivia."

I smiled and walked over to the door. "Well, I guess you should try to be more like them." I opened the door and started to walk out.

He scoffed. "One's a pacifist, the other turns into a dominatrix. No thanks." I laughed and closed the door.

* * *

 **(More inserting of space)**

* * *

 **Well, that was full of really late exposition.**


	4. Chapter 2 (The Lost Hero: 2)

_**Chapter 2**_

 **Skip to page 209**

 **The entire trip is kind of skipped over by Riordan, which is nice; I am definitely not going to complain. I'm still going to say that Lily trailed behind them, though, that's how they didn't realize she wasn't still with them. Also, trigger warning: reference to attempted suicide (people have some dumb triggers, I'm just being safe). Also, while it is in someone(who isn't Lily)'s P.O.V., there may be small bits that show what she(Lily)'s thinking; this does** _ **NOT**_ **mean it's in her perspective. Moving on now.**

 **Leo P.O.V.**

"We're going together," Jason insisted, putting his hand on Leo's shoulder, "or not at all."

There was a sudden flash of silver light above them, and then a voice said, "Yeah, I'm definitely gonna need to practice with this a bit."

They all look up in surprise and saw Lily fiddling with stuff on her jetpack/wings, while continuously teleporting downward in order to prevent from flying straight into the ceiling. Soon the wings and jets had folded into the box and she slowly descended. "Sorry I'm late, I was taking a nap."

"What is with you and sleeping?" Leo asked.

"The more I sleep, the more power I have in my next battle, so it stands to reason that I'd want to sleep a lot."

The pale girl, Zethes, and Cal just stared at Lily in surprise. "Jason, it's alright," she said. "I'll wait here with Leo; you two go meet with Boreas."

Jason and Piper looked at Leo, their expressions asking him a silent question: _How do you want to play this?_

Leo felt a surge of gratitude. They were ready to fight for him. Part of him wanted to go for it, bust out his new toolbelt and see what he could do, maybe even summon a fireball or two and warm this place up. But the Boread guys scared him. And that gorgeous girl scared him more, even if he wanted her number. However, none of them knew what to expect from Lily; really all that people knew about her was she was Kronos' daughter and fought for him in the last Titan War, and that she was from another universe. Frankly, that didn't seem like a story of a very trustworthy person, however, when she and Leo talked in the workshop before, she seemed like a kind person.

"It's fine, guys," he said. "No sense causing trouble if we don't have to. You go ahead."

"Listen to your friend," the pale girl said, seeming to have gotten over most of the surprise from Lily's appearance. "Leo Valdez will be perfectly safe. I wish I could say the same for you, son of Zeus. Now come, King Boreas is waiting."

 **Jason P.O.V.**

Jason didn't want to leave Leo, but he was starting to think that hanging out with Cal the hockey jock might be the _least_ dangerous option in this place; especially if Lily was actually going to protect him if need be.

 **Skip to page 226 (hooray, I'm adding more details than I would before)**

Back in the entry hall, Cal, Leo, and Lily were waiting for them. Leo looked cold but unharmed. He'd even gotten cleaned up, and his clothes looked freshly washed, like he'd used the hotel's valet service. Lily was sitting on a chair that looked like it was made of ice and reading a book (where did she get that?). Festus was back in normal form, snorting fire over his scales to keep himself defrosted.

As Khione led them down the stairs, Jason noticed Leo's eyes followed her. Leo started combing his hair back with his hands. **Dude, stop; please, just stop.** Uh-oh, Jason thought. **Who thinks "Uh-oh"?** He made a mental note to warn Leo about the snow goddess later. She was not someone to get a crush on.

At the bottom step, Khione turned to Piper. "You have fooled my father, girl. But you have not fooled me. We are not done. And you, Jason Grace, I will see you as a statue in the throne room soon enough."

"Boreas is right," Jason said. "You're a spoiled kid. See you around, ice princess." **DAMN SON! Are we sure this is Jason?**

Khione's eyes flared pure white. For once, she seemed at a loss for words. She stormed back up the stairs―literally. Halfway up, she turned into a blizzard and disappeared. **That's not totally literally.**

"Be careful," Zethes warned. "She never forgets an insult."

Cal grunted in agreement. "Bad sister."

"She's the goddess of snow," Jason said. "What's she going to do, throw snowballs at us?" But as he said it, Jason had a feeling Khione could do a whole lot worse. **You should come visit Minnesota sometime during winter.**

"That had to have been the cockiest thing I've heard in a while," Lily said as she closed her book and stood up. "There's a lot of things you can do with cold temperatures."

Leo wasn't paying attention to her; he looked devastated. "What happened up there? You made her mad? Is she mad at me too? Guys, that was my prom date!"

"I highly doubt any of you will even get a chance to go to prom," Lily muttered under her breath; I noticed her book was gone now (where did it go?).

"We'll explain later," Piper promised, but when she glanced at Jason, he realized she expected _him_ to explain.

 **Is it wrong that I'm currently listening to a song titled: "Mercy or Genocide" while writing this? Yeah? Okay. Skip to page 229.**

 **Piper P.O.V.**

Piper didn't relax until the glow of Quebec CIty faded behind them.

"You were amazing," Jason told her.

The compliment should have made her day. But all she could do was think about the trouble ahead. _Evil things are stirring_ , Zethes had said. She knew that firsthand. The closer they got to the solstice, the less time she had to make her decision.

She told Jason in French: "If you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't think I was so amazing."

Lily flew up next to them, wincing and holding the side of her head. "Hey, Piper, mind cutting down on the negative thoughts a bit? You're so depressed I'd be able to sense you from the other side of the Atlantic."

"Um, what?" Piper asked.

"I'm a telepath, and currently, you're screaming negative thoughts everywhere. It's not the greatest feeling. I know you're depressed because of…" Lily glanced at Jason and Leo, then looked back at Piper, "because of that THING, but, I get a feeling these two wouldn't care about it much. Same goes for you, Leo."

The two of them looked at her in shock, Leo slightly less so, while Jason just looked confused. "What are you talking about?" Jason asked her.

"They'll tell you eventually, whether they want to do it or are forced to by an outside force, although it won't be by me," she replied, before looking back at Piper and Leo.

"H-how do you…?" Piper stammered.

"I know I'm being a hypocrite, but I can't tell you how I know all this stuff. Just know that these two are your friends, and you can trust them; a true friend will always be there for you. And Leo, there's not much reason to hide it; one mistake shouldn't cripple you forever." Jason just looked even more confused. Leo turned his eyes down, his face serious, before turning his eyes forward and continuing "driving" Festus. Piper just continued to look at Lily in shock.

Piper heard Lily's voice, but she wasn't speaking, and it sounded… there's no way to explain it well. _I know you don't trust me. I don't really blame you. But, even if you can't trust me, you need to know that I trust you. All three of you. I trust you to make the right choices. Hiding negative emotions never works well in the end... for anyone._ Lily sighed. _I don't know if my word will even mean anything to you, but I can promise you that I do plan to protect you three, and hope you can come to trust me._

"Why―" Piper started before remembering that Lily was saying this telepathically. _Why do insist on protecting us?_ she thought, hoping Lily heard her.

 _Because I want to see you three become close friends, and, with you and Jason, maybe more._ Piper felt her cheeks flush slightly and saw Lily grin at her, before getting serious continuing. _I have seen what loneliness, isolation, and abandonment can do to a person's mind and heart. I saw someone who is now a close friend of mine try to stop himself from feeling that way; I still remember seeing my brother catch him._ Understanding what she was saying, Piper couldn't help feeling shocked. _I don't want to see any people with so much they could be living for go through something like that. So, whether or not you will believe me, if any of you are truly in danger, I will come to protect you._ She paused. _Sorry, guess I went on a bit of a rant. Well, I'll leave you be now._ Then she moved away again.

Jason, still clearly confused, asked Piper, "You said something before she came over. What was it?"

"I said I only talked to Boreas. It wasn't so amazing.

 **So, after uploading the Prologue and Chapter 1 to the new fanfiction (this one), it has 17.708219328% (I like being specific) the amount of words the 24-chapter long prequel had. That says something about my effort compared from then to now, doesn't it?**

She didn't turn to look, but she imagined him smiling.

"Hey," he said, "you saved me from joining Khione's sub-zero hero collection. I owe you one."

 _Did he really just say "sub-zero hero collection"?_ Lily thought to herself.

 _That was definitely the easy part_ , Piper thought. There was no way she would've let that ice witch keep Jason. **Yo, Riordan, when the book you're writing is over 550 pages, I think you're safe to use cuss words. Just saying.** What bothered Piper more was the way Boreas had changed form **He went Super Saiyan!** , and why he'd let them go. It had something to do with Jason's past, those tattoos on his arm. Boreas assumed he was some sort of Roman, and Romans didn't mix with Greeks. **No shit, really?** She kept waiting for Jason to offer an explanation, but he clearly didn't want to talk about it. And considering he'd just heard that she (and Leo) were keeping secrets from him, it made even more sense he didn't want to talk about it.

Until now, Piper had been able to dismiss Jason's feeling that he didn't belong at Camp Half-Blood. Obviously he was a demigod. Of course he belonged. But now… what if he was something else? What if he really was an enemy? She couldn't stand that idea any more than she could stand Khione.

Leo passed them some sandwiches from his pack. He'd been quiet ever since they told him what happened in the throne room. **What a baby.** "I still can't believe Khione," he said. "She looked so nice." **So much for being quiet.**

"Trust me man," Jason said. "Snow may be pretty, but up close it's cold and nasty. **I live in fucking Minnesota; I know this.** We'll find you a better prom date."

"Actually, he does the finding, then has to go through a bunch of crap to get the girl, but whatever," Lily said quiet enough for them to not hear her, but loud enough to know she said something.

"What did you s―wait, what?!" Piper exclaimed after looking at Lily.

"What?" Lily asked, before remembering that they hadn't seen that she'd made a chair, given the chair the wings (how does that even work?), sat down in the chair, and somehow got a fish fillet, which she was eating while reading the same book from before, which was currently floating in front of her. "Oh, right." Then she took another bite of the fish.

"How and when did you―" Piper started.

"What, can I not have food too?" Lily interrupted. "You guys get sandwiches, and I get nothing?"

"How did you put the wings on a chair? Actually, how'd you even get the chair?" Leo asked.

"They're made of metal; I can modify their size, shape, et cetera. And the chair I just made."

"Where'd you get the book and fish?" Piper asked.

"There's a slot for the book in the wingpack, and I can teleport. I can also make gold bars."

"Did you just call that a wingpack?" Jason asked.

"Yeah. Problem?"

"Wait, someone told me you could fly, but they said you could do it naturally," Leo said.

"Technically, I control the winds, like Jason, but I use the wingpack for long journeys where I can't just teleport. It would up too much of my stamina reserve," Lily explained, taking another bite of the fish. **I'm glad I'm having dinner soon; this is making me hungry.**

"Wait, your stamina reserve?" Jason asked.

 **Lily 3** **rd** **Person P.O.V.**

"According to my brother, I was born with an additional piece of a brain that unconsciously freezes an amount of stamina in time, which unfreezes when I need more power. He never told me where the frozen stamina goes, because it does leave my body after freezing. This causes me to tire. Because I'm still a human, I can only have so much stamina at a time, and unless I have an extremely large amount of stamina frozen, it will freeze small amounts of my stamina. Nothing that will make it hard for me to fight, but enough that I'm able to notice it."

She paused and continued eating her fish for a minute or two, letting them process the information before continuing. She finished and teleported her plate to the nearest composting thing, dropping it in and making the plate disappear. She teleported to the nearest store and bought a lemonade, then teleported back.

"So, you guys get all that?" Lily asked as she disintegrated the chair and grabbed the wings, putting them back on.

"I'm pretty sure I got it," Jason said.

"You talked too long," Leo said. "I told you that you weren't good at explaining things."

"Oh my gods," Lily muttered.

That's when she noticed Piper was asleep.

"How long has she been asleep?" Lily asked.

Jason seemed to just notice she'd fallen asleep, which was weird, considering she was using his chest as a pillow.

"I have no idea," he said.

"Well, if either of them want to know what I was saying, I'm sure you can sum it up for them," Lily told Jason.

"I'm good, thanks," Leo said.

 **This part that was in Lily's P.O.V. was during Piper's dream (duh). I just uploaded Chapter 1.5, and my god, is a bitch. Can't used /'s, can't use .'s in the title; it's such a pain in the ass. Skip to page 236. Piper P.O.V.**

The dream dissolved. And Piper woke up screaming, free falling through the air.

Piper tumbled through the sky. Far below she saw city lights glimmering in the early dawn, and several hundred yards away the body of a bronze dragon spinning out of control, its wings limp, fire flickering in his mouth like a badly wired lightbulb.

A body shot past her―Leo, screaming and frantically grabbing at clouds. "Not coooooool!"

She tried to call to him, but he was already too far below.

Somewhere above her, Jason yelled, " Piper, level out! Extend your arms and legs!"

It was hard to control her fear, but she did what he said and regained some balance. She fell spread-eagle like a skydiver, the wind underneath her like a solid block of ice. Then Jason was there, wrapping his arms around her waist.

Thank god, Piper thought. But part of her also thought: Great. Second time this week he's hugged me, and both times it's because I'm plummeting to my death.

"We have to get Leo!" she shouted.

Their fall slowed as Jason controlled the winds, but they still lurched up and down like the winds didn't want to cooperate.

"Gonna get rough," Jason warned. "Hold on!"

Piper locked her arms around him, and he shot towards the ground. Piper probably screamed, but the sound was ripped from her mouth. Her vision blurred.

And then, _thump!_ They slammed into another warm body **Yes, bodies are usually warm.** ―Leo, still wriggling and cursing.

"Stop fighting!" Jason said. "It's me!"

My dragon!" Leo yelled. "You gotta save Festus!"

"On it!" Lily yelled from above us.

We turned to look at her; her arm was outstretched towards Festus, who had been stopped mid-fall, but the strain on Lily's face showed that she wouldn't hold him very long. She lowered him a ways before dropping him down.

"That should minimize the damage to him," she said, panting, as she flew down to us. Leo looked relieved.

Jason's face reddened with strain as he tried to maintain the air cushion beneath them, but intermittent slow-down were the best he could manage. Rather than free-falling, it felt like they bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time, which wasn't doing Piper's stomach any favors.

As they wobbled and zigzagged, Piper could make out details of the complex factory below―warehouses, smokestacks, barbed-wire fences, and parking lots lined with snow-covered vehicles. They were still high enough that hitting the ground would flatten them into roadkill―or skykill **How about idiotkill?** ―when Jason groaned, "I can't―"

 **Is now a good time to mention that I'm currently sad and stuff because I just went and saw the new movie** _ **Logan**_ **? Yeah? Okay, well I won't say it the… shit.**

And they dropped like stones.

They hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through the darkness.

Unfortunately, Piper tried to land on her feet. Her feet didn't like that. Pain flared in her left ankle as she crumpled against a cold metal surface.

For a few seconds she wasn't conscious of anything but pain―pain so bad that her ears rang and her vision went red.

Then she heard Jason's voice somewhere below, echoing through the building. "Piper! Where's Piper?" **Where's a good stopping point is my question.**

"Ow, bro!" Leo groaned. **What is with the New Human Torch and the word "bro"?** "That's my back! I'm not a sofa! Piper, where'd you go?"

"We're over here!" I heard Lily's voice come from near me.

She heard shuffling and grunting, then feet pounding on metal steps.

Her vision began to clear. She was on a metal catwalk that ringed the warehouse interior. Leo and Jason had landed on ground level, and were now coming up towards her. Lily was next to her. She looked at Piper's foot, grimacing, before looking away. Piper looked at it too, and a wave of nausea swept over her. Her toes weren't supposed to point that way, were they?

Oh, god. Piper forced herself to look away before she threw up. Focus on something else. Anything else.

The hole they'd made was a ragged starburst twenty feet above. How they'd even survived that drop, she had no idea. **Me neither, and just because one of the characters mentions it doesn't mean it's not a problem.** Hanging from the ceiling, a few electric bulbs **Who the hell says "electric bulbs"?** flickered dimly, but they didn't do much to light the enormous space. Next to Piper, the corrugated metal wall was emblazoned with a company logo, but it was almost completely spray-painted over with graffiti. Down in the shadowy warehouse, she could make out huge machines, robotics arms, half-finished trucks on an assembly line. The place looked like it had been abandoned for years.

Jason and Leo reached her side.

Leo started to ask, "You okay…?" Then he saw her foot. **Is she not wearing shoes?** "Oh no, you're not."

"Thanks for the reassurance," Piper groaned.

"Would you prefer he told you that you're actually not hurt and you're just hallucinating?" Lily asked.

Jason ignored her. "You'll be fine," he said, though Piper could hear the worry in his voice. "Leo, you got any first aid supplies?"

 _Well, since you guys love ignoring me so much, I'll just go in this corner and leave you to do that while I get my stamina_ , Lily thought to herself before moving to a corner and putting walls all around her.

"Yeah―yeah, sure." He dug around his tool belt and pulled out a wad of gauze and a roll of duct tape―both of which seemed too big for the belt's pockets. Piper had noticed the tool belt yesterday morning, but she hadn't thought to ask Leo about it. It didn't look like anything special―just one of those wraparound leather aprons **I thought it was a tool belt.** With a bunch of pockets, like a blacksmith or carpenter might wear. And it seemed to be empty.

"How did you―" **There are five of those dashes on this page. Fuck you, Riordan.** Piper tried to sit up, and winced. "How did pull that stuff from an empty belt?" **See any errors Riordan made in that sentence?**

"Magic," Leo said. "Haven't figured it out completely, but I can summon just about any regular tool out of the pockets, plus some other helpful stuff." He reached into another pocket and pulled out a little tin box. "Breath mint?"

A sudden gust of wind carried the mints away and over a wall in the corner where a slight silver/gold light was glowing. Piper realized Lily wasn't anywhere, so she assumed she was doing something over there.

"Um… anyway, Leo, can you fix her foot?" Jason asked after a moment of staring at the flying breath mints and the light behind the wall.

"I'm a mechanic, man. Maybe if she was a car…" He snapped his fingers. **As opposed to snapping Piper's neck.** "Wait, what was that godly healing stuff they fed you at camp―Rambo food?" **Wait, how do you confuse Rambo food and ambrosia? They barely sound alike.**

"Ambrosia, dummy," Piper said through gritted teeth. "There should be some in my bag, if it's not crushed."

Jason carefully pulled her backpack off her shoulders. He rummaged through the supplies the Aphrodite kids had packed for her, and found a Ziploc full of smashed pastry squares like lemon bars. He broke off a piece and fed it to her.

 **Ah, fuck it. Lily's not talking anyway. Skip to page 244.**

"It's too dangerous," Jason said. "You shouldn't go by yourself."

"Then I'll go with," Lily said. "I can protect him and can help him fix Festus if need be. You two should stick together." She thought about something for a moment. "If you need my help, create a small electric shock; I'll be able to sense it."

"Um… alright, then," Jason said.

"We'll be fine," Leo said. "Just don't run off without us." Piper could tell he wasn't entirely comfortable going alone with Lily.

Leo reached into his magic toolbelt, pulled out a flashlight, and headed down the stairs. Lily looked at the logo on the wall for a moment before leaving with Leo.

 **HOLY SHIT, MAN! FUCK THIS CHAPTER'S LENGTH! Almost 4,000 words. The next chapter will start off in the book's next chapter, which is in Leo's perspective.**


	5. Chapter 3 (The Lost Hero: 3)

_**Chapter 3**_

 **So, I recently got an idea for a new fanfiction. It wouldn't involve any characters outside of that world (maybe [tee-hee {yes, I just did that}]), like most of my other fanfictions do/will. I guess I should mention that it would be Undertale fanfiction. Do those even exist? Lemme check real quick. Okay, the main fanfiction site has 6,700 of them. So, I might end up starting that sometime soon, so look for that… if you want to, that is (I totally don't already have like, 4 chapters written for it). Hopefully I don't force myself to make another 4,000 word chapter here.**

 **Start on page 249**

 **Leo P.O.V.**

Leo wished the dragon hadn't landed on the toilets.

Of all the places to crash, a line of Porta-Potties would not have been his first choice. A dozen of the blue plastic boxes had been set up in the factory yard, and Festus had flattened them all. Fortunately, they hadn't been used in a long time, and the fireball from the crash incinerated most of the contents; still, there were some pretty gross chemicals leaking out of the wreckage. **Since when is poop a chemical?** Leo was about to start picking his way through when he suddenly felt himself being lifted off the ground.

"Flying will probably allow us to inspect Festus for problems quicker," Lily said.

"R-right," Leo said, trying to get used to it.

They hovered over to Festus, where Leo looked around at him. After a bit of looking, he started to get irritated. Festus looked perfectly fine. Yes, it had fallen out of the sky and landed with a big _ka-boom_ , even with Lily slowing it down, but its body wasn't even dented. Lily was right; the fireball had come from the built up gases inside the toilet units, not from the dragon itself. Festus' wings were intact. Nothing seemed broken. There was no reason it should have stopped.

"Not my fault," Leo muttered. "Festus, you're making me look bad."

Then he opened the control panel on the dragon's head, and Leo's heart sank. "Oh, Festus, what the heck?"

The wiring had frozen over. Leo knew it had been okay yesterday. He'd worked so hard to repair the corroded lines, but something had caused a flash freeze inside the dragon's skull, where it should've been too hot for ice to form. The ice had caused the wiring to overload and char the control disk. Leo couldn't see any reason that would've happened. Sure, the dragon was old, but still, it didn't make sense.

He could replace the wires. That wasn't the problem. But the charred control disk was not good. The Greek letters and pictures carved around the edges, which probably held all kinds of magic, were blurred and blackened.

The one piece of hardware Leo couldn't replace―and it was damaged. _Again_.

"I warned you guys about Khione's power," Lily said, hovering over me.

"Wait, Khione did this?" Leo asked.

"I'd say the chance of this being her doing is around 98%."

"Can't you just say she probably did it?"

"That wouldn't be specific. I'll leave you to fixing this; I have no idea how to do this stuff, so I'll be on guard for monsters," Lily said before floating off.

"Um… alright."

He looked back at the wires and disk, imagining his mom's voice: _Most problems look worse than they are,_ mijo. _Nothing is unfixable._

 **Skip to page 254**

Then from the direction of the factory, Leo heard a crash―like two dump trucks slamming together. **That's… oddly specific.** Metal crumpled and groaned, and the noise echoed across the yard. Instantly Leo knew that Jason and Piper were in trouble. **How?**

 _Walk away now_ , the voice had urged.

"Not likely," Leo growled. "Gimme the biggest hammer you got."

He reached into his his tool belt and pulled out a three-pound club hammer with a double-faced head the size of a baked potato. Then he jumped off the dragon's back and ran towards the warehouse.

"It's usually not a good sign when you see someone talking to themselves right before they run to go fight," Lily said, flying next to me.

"Shut up."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *Line Break* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leo stopped at the doors and tried to control his breathing while Lily dropped to ground. The voice of the earth woman still rang in Leo's ears, reminding him of his mother's death. The last thing he wanted to do was plunge into another dark warehouse. Suddenly he felt eight years old again, alone and helpless as someone he cared about was trapped and in trouble.

Stop it, he told himself. That's how she wants you to feel.

But that didn't make him any less scared. He took a deep breath and peered inside. Nothing looked different. Gray morning light filtered through the hole in the roof. A few lightbulbs flickered, but most of the factory floor was still lost in shadows. He could make out the catwalk above the dim shapes of heavy machinery along the assembly line, but no movement. No sign of his friends.

He almost called out, but something stopped him―a sense he couldn't identify. Then he realized it was smell. **Couldn't identify it, huh?** Something smelled wrong―like burning motor oil and sour breath.

Something not human was inside the factory. Leo was certain. His body shifted into high gear, all his nerves tingling.

Somewhere on the factory floor, Piper's voice cried out: "Leo, help!"

But Leo held his tongue. How could Piper have gotten off the catwalk with her broken ankle?

He slipped inside and ducked behind a cargo container. When he looked back towards where Lily had been, she was gone. Where'd she go? Leo had to bring himself back to focus; slowly, gripping his hammer, he worked his way toward the center of the room, hiding behind boxes and hollow truck chassis. Finally he reached the assembly line. He crouched behind the nearest piece of machinery―a crane with a robotic arm.

 **Skip to page 264**

The wires sparked in Leo's hand. The Cyclopes froze and turned in his direction. Then Torque picked up a truck and threw it at him.

A flash of silver light appeared in the air between Leo and the truck, accompanied by Lily's voice. "Alright, that's enough." She appeared right as the truck was about to hit that spot kicking it so hard it flew against a wall and broke.

"Leo, whatever you're doing, it'd be great if you hurried up and didn't just look at me in surprise," she said while dropping to the ground. The Cyclopes looked at the broken truck in shock while Leo gunned the toggle on his makeshift remote, still shocked.

The first robotic arm whirred to life. A three ton yellow metal claw slammed Torque in the back so hard he landed flat on his face. Before he could recover, the robotic hand grabbed him by one leg and hurled him straight up.

"AHHHHH!" Torque rocketed into the gloom. The ceiling was too dark and too high up to see exactly what happened, but judging from the harsh metal _clang_ , Leo guessed the Cyclops hit one of the support girders.

Torque never came down. Instead, yellow dust rained to the floor. Torque had disintegrated. **Yes, thank you, I understood that.**

Ma Gasket stared at Leo in shock. "My son… You… You…"

As if on cue, Sump lumbered into the firelight with a case of salsa. "Ma, I got the extra-spicy―"

He never finished his sentence. Leo spun the remote's toggle, and the second robotic arm whacked Sump in the chest. The salsa case exploded like a piñata **No! Not the salsa!** and Sump flew backward, right into the base of Leo's third machine. Sump may have been immune to getting hit with truck chasses, but he wasn't immune to robotic arms that could deliver ten thousand pounds of force. The third crane arm slammed him against the floor so hard, he exploded into dust like a broken flour sack.

Two Cyclopes down. Leo was beginning to feel like Commander Tool Belt when Ma Gasket locked her eye on him. She grabbed the nearest crane arm and ripped it off its pedestal with a savage roar. "You busted my boys! Only _I_ get to bust my boys!"

Leo punched a button, and the two remaining arms swung into action. Ma Gasket caught the first one and tore it in half. The second arm smacked her in the head, but that only seemed to make her more mad. She grabbed it by the clamps, ripped it free, and swung it like a baseball bat. It missed Piper and Jason by an inch. Then Ma Gasket let it go―spinning it toward Leo. Lily teleported and grabbed it midair before throwing it at a wall. The arm broke through the wall instead of breaking upon impact. "Oh…" Lily said. "Oops."

Ma Gasket was so angry she didn't even seem to care. Leo was realizing an angry Cyclops was not something you wanted to fight with a universal remote and a screwdriver. The future for Commander Tool Belt was not looking so hot, especially since he was distracted by the fact Lily just accidently broke a wall.

Ma Gasket stood about twenty feet from Leo now, next to the cooking fire. Her fists were clenched, her teeth bared. She looked ridiculous in her chain mail muumuu and her greasy pigtails―but given the murderous glare in her huge red eye and the fact that she was twelve feet tall, Leo wasn't laughing.

"Any more tricks, demigod?" Ma Gasket demanded.

Leo glanced up. The engine block suspended on the chain―if only he'd had time to rig it. If only he could get Ma Gasket to take one step forward. The chain itself… that one link… Leo shouldn't have been able to see it, especially from so far down, but his senses told him there was metal fatigue.

"Heck yeah, I got more tricks!" Leo raised his remote control. "Take one more step, and I'll destroy you with fire!"

Ma Gasket laughed. "Would you?" Cyclopes are immune to fire, you idiot."

"Wouldn't think so if you felt my flames," Lily muttered under her breath.

"But if you wish to play with flames, let me help!"

She scooped red-hot coals into her bare hands and flung them at Leo. They landed all around his feet.

"You missed," he said incredulously.

"We have very different definitions of 'miss,'" Lily said.

Then Ma Gasket grinned and picked up a barrel next to the truck. Leo just had time to read the stenciled word on the side―KEROSENE―before Ma Gasket threw it. The barrel split on the floor in front of him, spilling lighter fluid everywhere.

Coals sparked. Leo closed his eyes, and Piper screamed, "No!"

A firestorm erupted around him. When Leo opened his eyes he was bathed in flames swirling twenty feet into the air.

Ma Gasket shrieked with delight, but Leo didn't offer the fire any good fuel. The kerosene burned off, dying down to small fiery patches on the floor.

Piper gasped. "Leo?"

"Thank Chaos your clothes don't burn either," Lily said.

Ma Gasket looked astonished. "You live?" Then she took that extra step forward, which put her right where Leo wanted. "What are you?" **A demigod. Also, he's a "who," not a "what."**

"The son of Hephaestus," Leo said. "And I warned you I'd destroy you with fire."

He pointed one finger in the air **Please tell me it was his middle finger.** And summoned all his will. He'd never tried to do anything so focused and intense―but he shot a bolt of white-hot flames at the chain suspending the engine block above the Cyclops' head―aiming for the link that looked weaker than the rest.

The flames died. Nothing happened. Ma Gasket laughed. "An impressive try, son of Hephaestus. It's been many centuries since I saw a fire user. You'll make a spicy appetizer!"

 _Fire users taste spicy?_ Lily wondered.

The chain snapped―that single link heated beyond its tolerance point―and the engine block fell, deadly and silent.

"I don't think so," Leo said.

Ma Gasket didn't even have time to look up.

 _Smash!_ No more Cyclops―just a pile of dust under a five-ton engine block.

"Not immune to engines, huh?" Leo said. "Boo-yah!"

"Well," Lily said, looking at the pile of dust, "that was effective."

Then Leo fell to knees, his head buzzing. After a few minutes he realized Piper was calling his name.

"Leo! Are you alright? Can you move?"

He stumbled to his feet. He'd never tried to summon such an intense fire before, and it had left him completely drained.

He was about to go get them down, but he realized Lily already was. Once they had gotten out of the chains, they walked over to Leo and set Jason down. Piper managed to trickle a little nectar into his mouth, and he groaned. The welt on his head started to shrink. His color came back a little.

"Yeah, he's got a nice thick skull," Leo said. "I think he's gonna be fine."

"Thank god," Piper sighed. Then she looked at Leo with something like fear. **Then why does she say he was awesome in a bit.** "How did you―the fire―have you always…?" **I've learned my lesson. I now have that dash copied, so I can just paste it whenever. Cheers to that!**

Leo looked down. "Always," he said. "I'm a freaking menace. Sorry, I should've told you guys sooner, but―"

"Sorry?" Piper punched his arm. When he looked up, she was grinning. "That was amazing, Valdez! **Who refers to someone by their last name when they're friends?** You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?"

"If you're a menace for having pyrogenesis and pyrokinesis, then what does that make me? Or my friend who can turn himself into a flaming dragon?" Lily asked.

"Are you… are you being serious?" Leo asked.

She looked at him. "Yeah. I guess you'd also be surprised if I told you that his level of power is about average among my friends."

"Just how powerful are you people?"

"Well, think about it this way. In this world, the kind of power people like you and Jason have is pretty immense. In my world, that level of power is weak or average. The monsters are also a lot tougher."

They just stared at Lily. What other reaction would fit after hearing something like that.

That's when Leo noticed something next to Piper's foot.

Yellow dust―the powdered remains of one of the Cyclopes, maybe Torque―was shifting across the floor like an invisible wind was pushing it back together.

"They're forming again," Leo said. "Look."

Piper stepped away from the dust. "That's not possible. Annabeth told me monsters dissipate when they're killed. They go to Tartarus and can't return for a long time.

"Well, nobody told the dust that." Leo watched as it collected into a pile, then very slowly spread out, forming a shape with arms and legs.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that," Lily said holding up her hand. Floating in a circle right above her hand were three spheres. "I have one piece of each of them sealed up in ice, so we're good.

Even so, Piper turned pale. "Boreas said something about this―the Earth yielding up horrors. 'When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades.'"

Leo thought about the face that had formed in the ground outside―the sleeping woman who was definitely a horror from the Earth.

"Well, we gonna stand here, or are we going to head out?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, let's get out of here."

 **Bit shorter than usual, but I just want to put something out. Besides, it's around 2,500 words. That's pretty good.**


	6. Chapter 4 (The Lost Hero:4)

_**Chapter 29 / 4**_

 **Yeah, I know, it's been a while. Calm your tits. I've been making my Undertale fanfiction. Currently it's easier and more fun to make than this one. I have eight chapters finished; it's over on Wattpad. I have accounts for both Wattpad and Fanfiction; my P.J.O./H.O. stories are on both accounts, but the Undertale fanfiction will only be on Wattpad because it's a lot more friendly to me. Its title is "Re:Tale - Bringing Life to Another World: An Undertale Fanfiction / A.U." Summary: Sans discovers the game's code and creates a new world of infinite possibilities using the seven human souls. Yes, seven. It's lacking in humor and my comments, but it's incredibly story-driven and has full backstory for all the characters. Mainly meaning Sans, Gaster, and Frisk. You can learn more by checking it out. Alright, time we go back into this. Turn on my comedy, turn off my seriousness and sadness, and turn on my fourth wall breaking. We're good to go.**

Leo thought about the face that had formed in the ground outside―the sleeping woman who was definitely a horror from the Earth.

"Well, we gonna stand here, or are we going to head out?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, let's get out of here."

 **Skip to page 274**

His eyes snapped open. "Cyclops!"

"Whoa, sleepyhead." Piper sat behind him on the bronze dragon, holding his waist to keep him balanced. Leo sat in the front, driving. They flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing happened.

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought―"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

"I wouldn't really call that a concussion. **Yeah, a concussion is damage to the brain. Jason had a big fucking welt or whatever on his head. That's not the brain. The brain is inside the inside of the inside of the head. Insideption.** I'd say it was more of a 'Let me explore this creepy place alone. Oh no, Cyclops,'" Lily said. Piper gave her a look. "What? That's what happened."

Jason's head throbbed. **Well, that's better than moistly pulsating. How many of you just cringed?** He remembered the factory, then walking down the catwalk, then a creature looming over him―a face with one eye, a massive fist―and everything went black.

"How did you―the Cyclops―"

"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said.

"He more smashed them, but you know, who's paying attention to detail here?" Lily asked. Piper ignored her and continued.

"He was amazing. He can summon fire―"

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.

Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."

And she did―how Leo single-handedly defeated the Cyclopes family, with Lily occasionally blocking their attacks for him; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to reform, but Lily prevented them from completely doing so; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air quickly.

Jason was impressed. Taking out three Cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit? Not bad. It didn't exactly scare him to hear how close he'd come to death, but it did make him feel horrible. He'd stepped right into an ambush and spent the whole fight knocked out while his friends fended for themselves. What kind of quest leader was he? **A shitty one. And person in general.**

When Piper told him about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin, **Beware of the man who speaks in Latin.** Jason felt like his head was going to explode. A son of Mercury… Jason felt like he should know that kid, but the name was missing from his mind.

"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."

"I―I know… but something Hera said. I was having a dream…"

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.

"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?"

Jason shook his head. **Well, that's helpful. "What does that mean?" "No."** "But Hera's gamble is _me_. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way―"

"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy―that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."

 **Skip to page 318. Lily was just silently following up until now. She was completely unaffected by Medea's sorcery, but it's not like it mattered.**

 _CRASH!_ The stained glass ceiling splintered in a rain of multicolored shards, and Festus the bronze dragon dropped into the department store.

"Just for the record, that's why I wasn't doing anything," Lily said (somehow, Piper could still hear her, even though she was fairly sure Lily hadn't spoken loudly) as Festus hurtled into the fray, snatching up a sun dragon in each claw. Only now did Piper appreciate just how big and strong their metal friend was.

"That's my boy!" Leo yelled.

"How can you tell it's a boy?" Lily asked.

Festus flew halfway up the atrium, then hurled the sun dragons into the pits they'd come from. Leo raced to the fountain and pressed the marble tile, closing the sundials.

They shuddered as the dragons banged against them, trying to get out, but for the moment they were contained.

"Wait were you having trouble with these guys?" Lily asked. She turned to where the dragons were locked. "You could have just asked." As she finished that sentence, two pillars of fire completely engulfed the sundials.

"Why didn't you didn't do that before?!" Leo asked.

"You didn't ask, and it's your quest, not mine."

Medea cursed in some ancient language. **I thought demigods understood Ancient Greek.** The whole fourth floor was on fire now. The air filled with noxious gas. **Then shouldn't you be dead?** Even with the roof open, Piper could feel the heat intensifying. She backed up to the edge of the railing, keeping her dagger pointed toward Medea.

"I will not be abandoned again!" The sorceress knelt and snatched up the red healing potion, which had somehow survived the crash. "You want your boyfriend's memory restored? Take me with you!"

Piper glanced behind her. Leo and Jason were onboard Festus' back. The bronze dragon flapped his mighty wings, snatched the two cages with the satyr and storm spirits, and started to ascend. Lily activated her wings and began to follow.

The building rumbled. Fire and smoke curled up the walls, melting the railings, turning the air to acid.

"You'll never survive your quest without me!" Medea growled. "Your boy hero will stay ignorant forever, and your father will die. Take me with you!"

For one heartbeat, Piper was tempted. Then she saw Medea's grim smile. The sorceress was confident in her powers of persuasion, confident that she could always make a deal, always escape and win in the end.

"Not today, witch."Piper jumped over the side. She plummeted for only a moment before Leo and Jason caught her, hauling her aboard the dragon.

She heard Medea screaming in rage **People scream other ways?** as they soared through the broken roof and over downtown Chicago. Then the department store exploded behind them. **Well that's dramatic.**

 **Skip to page 357. Same thing as before with Lily following quietly.**

Lit was smiling cruelly. The king rose, and Leo and Piper moved away from him.

"Don't worry," the king assured them. "You don't _have_ to be turned to gold. I give all my guests a choice―join my collection, or die at the hands of Lityerses. Really, it's good either way." **What about the hunters?**

Piper tried to use her charmspeak. "Your Majesty, you can't―"

Quicker than any old man should've been able move, Midas lashed out and grabbed her wrist.

"No!" Jason yelled.

But a frost of gold spread over Piper, and in a heartbeat she was a glimmering statue. Leo tried to summon fire, but he'd forgotten his power wasn't working. Midas touched his hand, and Leo transformed into solid metal.

Jason was so horrified he couldn't move. His friends―just _gone_. And he hadn't been able to stop.

Midas smiled apologetically. **Sure, you're totally sorry.** "Gold trumps fire, I'm afraid." He waved around him at all the gold curtains and furniture. "In this room, my power dampens all others: fire… even charmspeak. Which leaves me only two more trophies to collect."

Jason was going to try yelling for the coach, but Lily spoke before he could.

"Well, 'Your Majesty,'" she said. Something about her tone of voice and look in her eyes made every part of Jason's brain tell him to run. "I wouldn't be so sure about that. What you can be sure about is that you're very lucky that your golden touch can be undone, and that my power trumps gold. After all, time… trumps… EVERYTHING." At the last word, a surge of power shot of from around her, blowing both Lit and Midas back, cracking everything in the building, and shattering the floor beneath her. Strangely enough, Jason and Leo and Piper's statues weren't even slightly affected.

Midas, after recovering from the blast of power, went and grabbed her arm. However, she just looked at his hand, and then at his face, before a powerful gust of wind sent him flying back. Lily sighed. "Man, I really got to stop myself from interfering like that. Well, Jason, this is your _fight_. I can interfere if need be, but I doubt I'll have to." She walked back and leaned against the wall.

Jason realized why she emphasized "fight" the way she did. He on an idea. Once Midas got back up, after Midas realized that Lily wasn't going to do anything else, Jason said, "I choose combat. You said I could choose to fight Lit instead.

Midas looked slightly disappointed (as well as a bit terrified of Lily), but he shrugged. "I said you could _die_ fighting Lit. But of course, if you wish."

The king backed away, and Lit raised his sword.

"I am going to enjoy this," Lit said. "I am the Reaper of Men!"

 **For the protection of your brains, I'm going to censor this entire bit due to Jason's** _ **ridiculous**_ **and blasphemous statements and personality changes.**

"**** **, **********." ***** ******** *** *** ******. **** **** ** **** ** ** * *******, *** ***** *** **** *** *** ***** ******.

"Oh, gold weapon!" Midas said. "Very nice!"

Lit charged.

*** *** *** ****. ** ******* *** ******, *** ***** ***** ****** ***** *** ******, *** *** **** **** **** * ********* ****―********* ********, ******** ***'* *****, ***** *** *** *******, ** *******.

***** *********, ***********, *** *******. *** ****** ********* ** **** *** ***** *****.

"**** ** **** *****," *** *******. "*** ***'* ***** **** * *****."

"****** ********," ***** ****, ****** ** ****'* **** *** ** **** ****. "**'* *****."

"*****?" *** ***** *****, *** ***** ********* *** *****. "**** ** _*****_?"

" **Fuck Jason** ," **fuckJ ason**. " **FuckJ aso nFuc kJas** , **onFu ckJasonF uckJas**. **onFuckJ aso nFuckJas onFuck Ja son Fuck**." **I'm sorry, but that line was so UNBELIEVABLY pretentious and out-of-character (and his character was already bad enough) that I had to do that. Rome was a** _ **reaally**_ **shitty empire, buddy. At least the people in the empires of modern day usually wear** _ **actual fucking clothes**_ **. Jesus, his character annoys me.**

 **Skip to page… I just realized this is really only effective if not only the reader has the book, but also the EXACT copy of the book that I do. Well, seen as I've gotten almost 9,000 views on the first one which has more of these skips, I think I'm fine. Anyway, page 496. When they left Midas' house, Lily stayed in the area and decided to take a nap. As usual, no one noticed she was gone.**

" _Bon soir, mes amis_ ," said Khione, the goddess of snow. **Really? I thought she was the goddess of dicks.** She gave Leo a frosty smile. **Really?** "Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time? I'm afraid time is one tool you do not have."

 **Jason P.O.V.**

A flash of light suddenly appeared, with a tired-looking Lily standing there afterwards. She stretched and yawned, then said: "Good nap. What'd I miss?"

Everyone there stared at her in shock, including Hera and Khione. Lily looked around. "Oh, freeing Hera? Okay, cool."

She stopped talking and appeared to try to wake herself up a bit; then she suddenly stopped and laid down on the ground. "Wake me when the plot kicks back up." Then she fell asleep.

Even the monsters looked confused. That's around when Jason remembered Thalia.

After the fight on Mount Diablo, Jason didn't think he could ever feel more afraid or devastated. **I get afraid, but why devastated?**

Now his sister was frozen at his feet. He was surrounded by monsters. He'd broken his his golden sword and replaced it with a piece of wood. He had approximately five minutes until the king of the giants busted out and destroyed them. Jason had already pulled his biggest ace, calling down Zeus' lightning when he'd fought Enceladus, and he doubted he'd have the strength or the cooperation from above to do it again. Which meant his only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, one sort-of girlfriend **Jesus Christ, just get together or don't!** with a dagger, Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness **Armies of darkness? Are you fucking kidding me?!** with breath mints **I mean, why not?** , and a lazy and possibly narcoleptic half-titaness.

On top of all this, Jason's worst memories were flooding back. He knew for certain he'd done many dangerous things in his life, but he'd never been closer to death than he was right now.

The enemy was beautiful. **Is that really all you're focusing on?** Khione got over her surprise enough and smiled, her dark eyes glittering, as a dagger of ice grew in her hand.

"What've you done?" Jason demanded. **More of a question than a demand…**

"Oh, so many things," the snow goddess purred. **Like a cat?** "Your sister's not dead, if that's what you mean. **She's only half-dead, incapacitated, frozen, probably getting hypothermia, and most likely on the verge of death.** She and her Hunters **They're Artemis' Hunters, actually.** will make fine toys for our wolves. I thought we'd defrost them one at a time and hunt them down for amusement. Let _them_ be the prey for once." **I'm fairly sure they'd be able to rip the wolves in half, considering the strength of demigods combined with their constant training**.

The wolves snarled appreciatively.

"Yes, my dears." Khione kept her eyes on Jason. "Your sister almost killed their king, you know. Lycaon's off in a cave somewhere, no doubt licking his wounds, but his minions have joined us to take revenge for their master. And soon Porphyrion will arise, and we shall rule the world."

"Traitor!" Hera shouted. **Oh, so we're doing this meme now?** "You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren't worthy to pour my wine, much less rule the world."

Khione sighed. "Tiresome as ever, Queen Hera. I've been wanting to shut you up for millennia."

Khione waved her hand, and ice encased the prison, sealing in the spaces between the earthen tendrils.

"That's better," the snow goddess said. "Now, demigods, about your death―"

"You're the one who tricked Hera into coming here," Jason said. "You gave Zeus the idea of closing Olympus."

The wolves snarled, and the storm spirits whinnied, ready to attack, but Khione held up her hand. "Patience, my loves. **Ew.** If he wants to talk, what matter? The sun is setting, and time is on our side. Of course, Jason Grace. Like snow, my voice is quiet and gentle, and very cold. It's easy for me to whisper to the other gods, especially when I am only confirming their own deepest fears. I also whispered in Aeolus's ear that he should issue an order to kill demigods. It is a small service for Gaea, but I'm sure I will be well rewarded when her sons the giants come to power."

"You could've killed us in Quebec," Jason said. "Why let us live?"

 **Because skip to page 501.**

Leo grinned. "See, lady, that's what happens to snow in Texas. It―freaking―melts." **It also melts when you summon fire on it.**

Khione hissed. "Enough of this. Hera is failing. Porphyrion is rising. Kill the demigods. Let them be our king's first meal!" **Mm, demigod; my favorite.**

Suddenly Lily got up and stretched. "You guys talk a lot."

Jason hefted his icy wooden plank―a stupid weapon to die fighting with―and the monsters charged.

A wolf launched itself at Jason. He stepped back and swung his scrap wood into the beast's snout with a satisfying crack. Maybe only silver could kill it, but a good old-fashioned board could still give it a Tylenol headache.

He turned toward the sound of hooves and saw a storm spirit horse bearing down on him. Jason concentrated **and skipped a bit.**

Leo had taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should've been suicide, Leo was the right man for the job. She kept summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burned through all of it. His whole body flickered with red tongues of flame like he'd been doused with gasoline. He advanced on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-peen hammers to smash any monsters that got in his way. **Holy shit, Leo's such a badass.**

Then there was Lily. At a glance, Jason didn't think she was actually doing anything at first. She was reading a book and drinking what looked like hot chocolate (when did she get this stuff?), and all the monsters seemed to be avoiding her on their own. However, Jason realized that occasionally, a random monster would spontaneously combust; he realized it was probably Lily doing that. After she finished her hot chocolate (which seemed to just disappear) she would also random shoot lightning bolts out her empty hand, vaporizing any monster on the spot. However she was still reading the book. Jason had been able to get a glimpse at the title at one point: _The Son of Neptune_. That sounded strangely relevant for some reason. **I don't know what you're talking about.**

Jason realized that Leo was the only reason they were still alive. His fiery aura was heating up the whole courtyard, countering Khione's winter magic. Without him, they would've been frozen like the Hunters long ago. Wherever Leo went, ice melted off the stones. Even Thalia started to defrost a little when Leo stepped near her.

Khione slowly backed away. Her expression went from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo got closer.

Jason was running out of enemies. Wolves lay in dazed heaps. Some slunk away into the ruins, yelping from their wounds. Piper stabbed the last Earthborn, who toppled to the ground in a pile of sludge. Jason rode Tempest through the last ventus, breaking it into vapor. Then he wheeled around and saw Leo bearing down on the goddess of snow.

"You're too late," Khione snarled. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us."

Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow—a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.

Piper was breathing hard, but she smiled up at Jason. "Nice horse."

Tempest reared on his hind legs, arcing electricity across his hooves.A complete show-off.

Then Jason heard a cracking sound behind him. The melting ice on Hera's cage sloughed off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess called, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"

Jason dismounted and told Tempest to stay put. The three demigods jumped into the pool and ran to the spire.

Leo frowned. "Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?"

"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

As much as Jason disliked Hera, what he saw inside the cage alarmed him. Not only was Hera sinking, the ground was rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins. "The giant wakes!" Hera warned. "You only have seconds!"

"On it," Leo said. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."

"What?" she said.

"Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I—"

"Right!" Piper cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"

The more she talked, the more confident she sounded. Jason felt his own eyes getting heavy, and he had to force himself not to focus on her words. It seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little—becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt. How it fit in there, Jason had no idea. Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"

The spirit horse Tempest jumped into the pit and whinnied.

"Really?" Jason asked.

Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug, and a breeze whisked it into the horse's flank. Lighting sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life. "Sweet!" Leo grinned. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"

Their good mood didn't last long. On the other side of the pool, the giant's spire crumbled with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Its outer sheath of tendrils exploded from the top down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shook himself free and climbed out of the earth.

Jason hadn't thought anything could be scarier than Enceladus.

He was wrong.

Porphyrion was even taller, and even more ripped. He didn't radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there was something more terrible about him—a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field.

Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon's legs; but his skin was the color of lima beans. His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons—daggers, axes, and full-size swords, some of them bent and bloody—maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.

"Alive!" he bellowed. "Praise to Gaea!"

Jason made a heroic little whimpering sound he hoped his friends couldn't hear. He was very sure no demigod could solo this guy. Porphyrion could lift mountains. He could crush Jason with one finger.

"Leo," Jason said.

"Huh?" Leo's mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed.

"You guys keep working," Jason said. "Get Hera free!"

"What are you going to do?" Piper asked. "You can't seriously—"

"Entertain a giant?" Jason said. "I've got no choice."

 **Look at me, I'm smart and used a P.D.F.**

 **~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Line Break)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

"Excellent!" the giant roared as Jason approached. "An appetizer! Who are you—Hermes? Ares?"

Jason thought about going with that idea, but something told him not to.

"I'm Jason Grace," he said. "Son of Jupiter."

Those white eyes bored into him. Behind him, Leo's circular saw whirred, and Piper talked to the cage in soothing tones, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

Porphyrion threw back his head and laughed. "Outstanding!" He looked up at the cloudy night sky. "So, Zeus, you sacrifice a son to me? The gesture is appreciated, but it will not save you."

The sky didn't even rumble. No help from above. Jason was on his own.

He dropped his makeshift club. His hands were covered in splinters, but that didn't matter now. He had to buy Leo and Piper some time, and he couldn't do that without a proper weapon.

It was time to act a whole lot more confident than he felt.

"If you knew who I was," Jason yelled up at the giant, "you'd be worried about me, not my father. I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because I'm going to send you right back to Tartarus."

The giant's eyes narrowed. He planted one foot outside the pool and crouched to get a better look at his opponent. "So … we'll start by boasting, will we? Just like old times! Very well, demigod. I am Porphyrion, king of the giants, son of Gaea. In olden times, I rose from Tartarus, the abyss of my father, to challenge the gods. To start the war, I stole Zeus's queen." He grinned at the goddess's cage. "Hello, Hera."

"My husband destroyed you once, monster!" Hera said. "He'll do it again!"

"But he didn't, my dear! Zeus wasn't powerful enough to kill me. He had to rely on a puny demigod to help, and even then, we almost won. This time, we will complete what we started. Gaea is waking. She has provisioned us with many fine servants. Our armies will shake the earth—and we will destroy you at the roots."

"You wouldn't dare," Hera said, but she was weakening. Jason could hear it in her voice. Piper kept whispering to the cage, and Leo kept sawing, but the earth was still rising inside Hera's prison, covering her up to her waist.

"Oh, yes," the giant said. "The Titans sought to attack your new home in New York. Bold, but ineffective. Gaea is wiser and more patient. And we, her greatest children, are much, much stronger than Kronos. We know how to kill you Olympians once and for all. You must be dug up completely like rotten trees—your eldest roots torn out and burned."

The giant frowned at Piper and Leo, as if he'd just noticed them working at the cage. Jason stepped forward and yelled to get back Porphyrion attention.

"You said a demigod killed you," he shouted. "How, if we're so puny?"

"Ha! You think I would explain it to you? I was created to be Zeus's replacement, born to destroy the lord of the sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his wife—or, if she will not have me, I will let the earth consume her life force. What you see before you, child, is only my weakened form. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But I am already quite capable of smashing you to a grease spot!"

He rose to his full height and held out his hand. A twenty-foot spear shot from the earth. He grasped it, then stomped the ground with his dragon's feet. The ruins around the courtyard, monsters started to regather—storm spirits, wolves, and Earthborn, all answering the giant king's call.

"Great," Leo muttered. "We needed more enemies."

"Hurry," Hera said.

"I know!" Leo snapped.

"Go to sleep, cage," Piper said. "Nice, sleepy cage. Yes, I'm talking to a bunch of earthen tendrils. This isn't weird at all."

Porphyrion raked his spear across the top of the ruins, destroying a chimney and spraying wood and stone across the courtyard. "So, child of Zeus! I have finished my boasting. Now it's your turn. What were you saying about destroying me?"

Jason looked at the ring of monsters, waiting impatiently for their master's order to tear them to shreds. Leo's circular saw kept whirring, and Piper kept talking, but it seemed hopeless. Hera's cage was almost completely filled with earth.

"I'm the son of Jupiter!" he shouted, and just for effect, he summoned the winds, rising a few feet off the ground. "I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion." Jason didn't know quite what he was saying, but he rattled off the words like he'd said them many times before. He held out his arms, showing the tattoo of the eagle and SPQR, and to his surprise the giant seemed to recognize it.

For a moment, Porphyrion actually looked uneasy.

"I slew the Trojan sea monster," Jason continued. "I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed the Titan Krios with my own hands. And now I'm going to destroy you, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves."

"Wow, dude," Leo muttered. "You been eating red meat?"

Jason launched himself at the giant, determined to tear him apart.

 **~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Line Break)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

The idea of fighting a forty-foot-tall immortal barehanded was so ridiculous, even the giant seemed surprised. Half flying, half leaping, Jason landed on the giant's scaly reptilian knee and climbed up the giant's arm before Porphyrion even realized what had happened.

"You dare?" the giant bellowed.

Jason reached his shoulders and ripped a sword out of the giant's weapon-filled braids. He yelled, "For Rome!" and drove the sword into the nearest convenient target—the giant's massive ear.

Lightning streaked out of the sky and blasted the sword, throwing Jason free. He rolled when he hit the ground. When he looked up, the giant was staggering. His hair was on fire, and the side of his face was blackened from lightning. The sword had splintered in his ear. Golden ichor ran down his jaw. The other weapons were sparking and smoldering in his braids.

 **Only problem with using a P.D.F. is I can't really put any comments in quickly. I'd have to go through the entire thing and put comments here and there, but I just want to finish this.**

Porphyrion almost fell. The circle of monsters let out a collective growl and moved forward—wolves and ogres fixing their eyes on Jason.

"No!" Porphyrion yelled. He regained his balance and glared at the demigod. "I will kill him myself."

The giant raised his spear and it began to glow. "You want to play with lightning, boy? You forget. I am the bane of Zeus. I was created to destroy your father, which means I know exactly what will kill you."

"Yeah, well, that's too bad." Everyone turned towards Lily's voice. She was staring at the giant nonchalantly. "Considering you weren't born to take on beings from other dimensions." She began to radiate power like that of a god. All the monsters backed away from her as she began to float up into the air, electricity and flames sparking around her.

"Who are you?" Porphyrion bellowed.

"I am Lily Silver. I am the daughter of Kronos, hero of the Chaos Dimension and sister of the spawn of Chaos. I have defeated gods and monsters hundreds of times more powerful than you. I am the controller of time and a traveller of universes. You cannot beat me." Seemingly to prove her point, she let out an attack of multiple elements, which blasted back Porphyrion and made him stagger.

As he recovered, Leo yelled out, "Got it!"

"Sleep!" Piper said, so forcefully, the nearest wolves fell to the ground and began snoring.

The stone and wood cage crumbled. Leo had sawed through the base of the thickest tendril and apparently cut off the cage's connection to Gaea. The tendrils turned to dust. The mud around Hera disintegrated. The goddess grew in size, glowing with power.

"Yes!" the goddess said. She threw off her black robes to reveal a white gown, her arms bedecked with golden jewelry. Her face was both terrible and beautiful, and a golden crown glowed in her long black hair. "Now I shall have my revenge!"

The giant Porphyrion backed away. He said nothing, but he gave Jason one last look of hatred. His message was clear: _Another time_. And, while looking at Lily with something like fear, he slammed his spear against the earth, and the giant disappeared into the ground like he'd dropped down a chute.

Around the courtyard, monsters began to panic and retreat, but there was no escape for them. Hera glowed brighter.

She shouted, "Cover your eyes, my heroes!"

But Jason was too much in shock. He understood too late.

He watched as Hera turned into a supernova, exploding in a ring of force that vaporized every monster instantly. Jason fell, light searing into his mind, and his last thought was that his body was burning.

 **~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Line Break)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

 **Piper P.O.V.**

"JASON!"

Piper kept calling his name as she held him, though she'd almost lost hope. He'd been unconscious for two minutes now. His body was steaming, his eyes rolled back in his head. She couldn't tell if he was even breathing.

"It's no use, child." Hera stood over them in her simple black robes and shawl.

Piper hadn't seen the goddess go nuclear. Thankfully she'd closed her eyes, but she could see the aftereffects. Every vestige of winter was gone from the valley. No signs of battle, either. The monsters had been vaporized. The ruins had been restored to what they were before—still ruins, but with no evidence that they'd been overrun by a horde of wolves, storm spirits, and six-armed ogres.

Even the Hunters had been revived. Most waited at a respectful distance in the meadow, but Thalia knelt by Piper's side, her hand on Jason's forehead.

Thalia glared up at the goddess. "This is your fault. Do something!"

"Do not address me that way, girl. I am the queen—"

"Fix him!" Hera's eyes flickered with power. "I _did_ warn him. I would never intentionally hurt the boy. He was to be my champion. I told them to close their eyes before I revealed my true form."

"Um …" Leo frowned. "True form is bad, right? So why did you do it?"

"I unleashed my power to help you, fool!" Hera cried. "I became pure energy so I could disintegrate the monsters, restore this place, and even save these miserable Hunters from the ice."

"But mortals can't look upon you in that form!" Thalia shouted. "You've killed him!"

Leo shook his head in dismay. "That's what our prophecy meant. _Death unleash, through Hera's rage._ Come on, lady. You're a goddess. Do some voodoo magic on him! Bring him back."

Piper half heard their conversation, but mostly she was focused on Jason's face. "He's breathing!" she announced.

"Impossible," Hera said. "I wish it were true, child, but no mortal has ever—"

"Jason," Piper called, putting every bit of her willpower into his name. She could not lose him. "Listen to me. You can do this. Come back. You're going to be fine."

Nothing happened. Had she imagined his breath stirring?

"Healing is not a power of Aphrodite," Hera said regretfully. "Even I cannot fix this, girl. His mortal spirit—"

"Jason," Piper said again, and she imagined her voice resonating through the earth, all the way down to the Underworld. "Wake up."

He gasped, and his eyes flew open. For a moment they were full of light—glowing pure gold. Then the light faded and his eyes were normal again. "What—what happened?"

"Impossible!" Hera said.

Piper wrapped him in a hug until he groaned, "Crushing me."

"Sorry," she said, so relieved, she laughed while wiping a tear from her eye.

Thalia gripped her brother's hand. "How do you feel?"

"Hot," he muttered. "Mouth is dry. And I saw something… really terrible."

"That was Hera," Thalia grumbled. "Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon."

"That's it, Thalia Grace," said the goddess. "I will turn you into an aardvark, so help me—"

"Stop it, you two," Piper said. Amazingly, they both shut up.

Piper helped Jason to his feet and gave him the last nectar from their supplies.

"Now …" Piper faced Thalia and Hera. "Hera—Your Majesty—we couldn't have rescued you without the Hunters. And Thalia, you never would've seen Jason again—I wouldn't have met him—if it weren't for Hera. You two make nice, because we've got bigger problems."

They both glared at her, and for three long seconds, Piper wasn't sure which one of them was going to kill her first.

Finally Thalia grunted. "You've got spirit, Piper." She pulled a silver card from her parka and tucked it into the pocket of Piper's snowboarding jacket. "You ever want to be a Hunter, call me. We could use you."

Hera crossed her arms. "Fortunately for _this_ Hunter, you have a point, daughter of Aphrodite." She assessed Piper, as if seeing her clearly for the time. "You wondered, Piper, why I chose you for this quest, why I didn't reveal your secret in the beginning, even when I knew Enceladus was using you. I must admit, until this moment I was not sure. Something told me you would be vital to the quest. Now I see I was right. You're even stronger than I realized. And you are correct about the dangers to come. We must work together."

Piper's face felt warm. She wasn't sure how to respond to Hera's compliment, but Leo stepped in.

"Yeah," he said, "I don't suppose that Porphyrion guy just melted and died, huh?"

"No," Hera agreed. "By saving me, and saving this place, you prevented Gaea from waking. You have bought us some time. But Porphyrion has risen. He simply knew better than to stay here, especially since he has not yet regained his full power. Giants can only be killed by a combination of god and demigod, working together. Once you freed me—"

"He ran away," Jason said. "But to where?"

Hera didn't answer, but a sense of dread washed over Piper. She remembered what Porphyrion had said about killing the Olympians by pulling up their roots. _Greece._ She looked at Thalia's grim expression, and guessed the Hunter had come to the same conclusion.

"I need to find Annabeth," Thalia said. "She has to know what's happened here."

"Thalia …" Jason gripped her hand. "We never got to talk about this place, or—"

"I know." Her expression softened. "I lost you here once. I don't want to leave you again. But we'll meet soon. I'll rendezvous with you back at Camp Half-Blood." She glanced at Hera. "You'll see them there safely? It's the least you can do."

"It's not your place to tell me—"

"Queen Hera," Piper interceded.

The goddess sighed. "Fine. Yes. Just off with you, Hunter!"

Thalia gave Jason a hug and said her good-byes. When the Hunters were gone, the courtyard seemed strangely quiet. The dry reflecting pool showed no sign of the earthen tendrils that had brought back the giant king or imprisoned Hera. The night sky was clear and starry. The wind rustled in the redwoods. Piper thought about that night in Oklahoma when she and her dad had slept in Grandpa Tom's front yard. She thought about the night on the Wilderness School dorm roof, when Jason had kissed her—in her Mist-altered memories, anyway.

"Jason, what happened to you here?" she asked. "I mean—I know your mom abandoned you here. But you said it was sacred ground for demigods. Why? What happened after you were on your own?"

Jason shook his head uneasily. "It's still murky. The wolves …"

"You were given a destiny," Hera said. "You were given into my service."

Jason scowled. "Because you forced my mom to do that. You couldn't stand knowing Zeus had two children with my mom. Knowing that he'd fallen for her _twice_. I was the price you demanded for leaving the rest of my family alone."

"It was the right choice for you as well, Jason," Hera insisted. "The second time your mother managed to snare Zeus's affections, it was because she imagined him in a different aspect—the aspect of Jupiter. Never before had this happened—two children, Greek and Roman, born into the same family. You had to be separated from Thalia. This is where all demigods of your kind start their journey."

"Of his kind?" Piper asked.

"She means Roman," Jason said. "Demigods are left here. We meet the she-wolf goddess, Lupa, the same immortal wolf that raised Romulus and Remus."

Hera nodded. "And if you are strong enough, you live."

"But …" Leo looked mystified. "What happened after that? I mean, Jason never made it to camp."

"Not to Camp Half-Blood, no," Hera agreed.

Piper felt as if the sky were spiraling above her, making her dizzy. "You went somewhere else. That's where you've been all these years. Somewhere else for demigods—but where?"

Jason turned to the goddess. "The memories are coming back, but not the location. You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"No," Hera said. "That is part of your destiny, Jason. You must find your own way back. But when you do … you will unite two great powers. You will give us hope against the giants, and more importantly—against Gaea herself."

"You want us to help you," Jason said, "but you're holding back information."

"Giving you answers would make those answers invalid," Hera said. "That is the way of the Fates. You must forge your own path for it to mean anything. Already, you three have surprised me. I would not have thought it possible …"

The goddess shook her head. "Suffice to say, you have performed well, demigods. But this is only the beginning. Now you must return to Camp Half-Blood, where you will begin planning for the next phase."

"Which you won't tell us about," Jason grumped. "And I suppose you destroyed my nice storm spirit horse, so we'll have to walk home?"

Hera waved aside the question. "Storm spirits are creatures of chaos. I did not destroy that one, though I have no idea where he went, or whether you'll see him again. But there is an easier way home for you. As you have done me a great service, so I can help you—at least this once. Farewell, demigods, for now."

The world turned upside down, and Piper almost blacked out.

 **~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Line Break)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

When she could see straight again, she was back at camp, in the dining pavilion, in the middle of dinner. They were standing on the Aphrodite cabin's table, and Piper had one foot in Drew's pizza. Sixty campers rose at once, gawking at them in astonishment.

Whatever Hera had done to shoot them across the country, it wasn't good for Piper's stomach. She could barely control her nausea. Leo wasn't so lucky. He jumped off the table, ran to the nearest bronze brazier, and threw up in it—which was probably not a great burnt offering for the gods.

"Jason?" Chiron trotted forward. No doubt the old centaur had seen thousands of years' worth of weird stuff, but even he looked totally flabbergasted. "What—How—?"

The Aphrodite campers stared up at Piper with their mouths open. Piper figured she must look awful.

"Hi," she said, as casually as she could. "We're back."

 **~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Line Break)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

 **Skip to page last. Lily was not teleported with them.**

"Exactly," Jason agreed. "Percy Jackson is at the other camp, and he probably doesn't even remember who he is."

"FINALLY!"

They all turned towards Lily, who was sitting in a chair away from all of them.

"Seriously, how did none of you realize that yet?" she asked.

"Maybe we were too busy _working_ , unlike some people," Annabeth retorted.

"You know, if you guys want me to help that much, you could just ask (and stop treating me like an enemy)."

"You never go out of your locked house," Annabeth said.

Lily made a small hand movement. "There, it's unlocked. Make sure to knock or ring the doorbell which I'm planning to put in soon."

"Just because you're stronger than everyone doesn't mean you can do whatever you want."

"Moderately free country."

"Oh my gods," Annabeth muttered.

"If it's any consolation, I'll be helping you guys on your quest to Greece."

"And who decided that?"

"My brother, Hale," Lily said. "And, you know, me."

"Fine, whatever."

"Okaycoolbye…" Lily said as she teleported off.

 **Okay,** _ **The Lost Hero**_ **is finished. FUCKING FINALLY. Took me long enough. Now to address something.**

 **So, Lily's personality and character. First off, let me start by saying I was trying to develop her character through the fanfic itself, but I decided "Fuck it." Also, I should also mention the her character, as well as anyone else I add to these stories, aren't supposed to make sense. They're supposed to actually feel like people existing completely outside of the world they're in; they aren't supposed to be "normal characters." They're supposed to be characters that have already had their adventure, and now are being inserted into another story 'cause they fucking felt like it (well, me and Hale did, at least). Even in their own story, they're extremely abnormal characters (and that's without me mentioning the fact that many of them exist to help me prove a point to humankind).**

 **Anywho, her personality. She's kind and caring to friends and family (except Hale [you'll see their kind of connection later on]). She will fight, but will never willingly kill unless she knows the things she kills can come back, and even then she's often hesitant. There is a reason for this, it may or may not be revealed. She is intelligent, witty, sassy, and sarcastic, most likely due to (at least partially) being with Hale most of her life (he is just a nightmare with his sass and sarcasm). She usually doesn't cuss, but she occasionally does. She is confident in her abilities, but never overestimates herself, thinks she's invincible, or underestimates an opponent.**

 **She is fully aware of the fourth wall, as is everyone in their world. This may or may not be due to the fact that Hale made the fourth wall.**

 **She's a bit of a bookworm, and a gamer, often reading books that are a bit happier and contain "useful information," as she says, although some are just for fun. She's also definitely NOT a morning person (I can fucking relate to that).**

 **She is often a combination of serious, sassy, and sarcastic, however she can be easily embarrassed (As I showed in that ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HORRENDOUS kissing scene with her and Sam [I honestly can't think about that without cringing.].). Hale often annoys her with his antics and personality. She has a very close relationship with all of her friends, sometimes with a bond more like a family (a love/hate kind of thing). She's also incredibly humble, and tends not to boast about her power.**

 **Alright, I think that covers that. See you all in** _ **The Son Of Neptune**_ **. I just realized this has almost 8,000 words.**


	7. Chapter 00 (More Prologues)

_**Chapter 5 / Prologue**_

 **Oh hey, look, another prologue. Whoop-de-fucking-doo.**

"Okay, so you―"

 **Hale, let me explain what the fuck is happening and who's speaking first.**

"Why should I?"

 **Because I said so.**

"Okay, _mom_."

 **Alright, so yeah… that was Hale, breaking the fourth wall again.**

"Not much of a wall left to break, really."

 **AND WHY MIGHT THAT BE?**

"Fair point."

 **Ahem. So, yeah, hi. I'm back.** _ **The Son of Neptune**_ **. Okay. Cool. I'm totally not salty I have only 184 views on this new fanfiction even though it's so much better than the first one, which has 8,850 views. Still not salty about the lack of reviews, either.**

"You done whining?"

 **I think so.**

"Cool, 'cause i've got something to say."

 **Neat.**

"I'll be joining that world sooner than I expected."

 **Wait, seriously?**

"Yeah."

 **YES! I won't have to be bored writing this!"**

"You're actua―"

 **Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm typing, not writing.**

"You know, I should change your personality so you're less like me."

 **Pls no.**


	8. Sorry

_**Update**_

 **So uh… I dislocated my kneecap. Bruised femur, stretched ligaments, cartilage knocked out… it's not fun. But yeah, I haven't been updating because I've been dealing with that, plus school is wrapping up quick and I'm still behind. So I probably won't be uploading as often, if at all. I also can't get to my book so I can write the story. That's also a problem. Sorry for those that want more.**


	9. Chapter 5 (The Son of Neptune: 1)

_**Chapter 31 / 1**_

 **HELLO BOYS! I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!**

 **Skip to page 151 (I did not miss this)**

Of course, no one said a word. But many of the campers glared at Frank with envy, jealousy, anger, bitterness. **I feel like several grammars were ignored in those sentences, but whatever. Oh, it's so much fun to comment!**

"Y―" Mars started.

"HELLOOOOO, ROMANS!" yelled a girl who dropped from the sky and appeared next to Mars. "You too, Mars," she said while patting him on the back. Everyone was completed silent from shock.

"Oh, hey, Percy! I haven't seen you in at LEAST a bit over book; you too, war god. By the way, any of you guys see that new Wonder Woman movie? Man, they really messed up all that mythology, huh?"

"Who are you?" Mars asked the girl.

"Eh, that doesn't matter. Name's Lily, and DEAR GOD, THAT'S ENOUGH OF THAT STUPID SHIT," the girl replied, leaning against the air behind her. "Hey, Red Rock, go on, I won't interrupt you again in this chapter."

"What the f… nevermind, who cares," Mars said in response. He turned back to Frank. "You can take two companions. Those are the rules. One of them needs to be this kid." He pointed at Percy. "He's gonna learn some respect for Mars on this trip, or die trying. **How the fuck does that work?** As for the second, I don't care. Pick whomever you want. Have one of your senate debates. You all are good at those."

The god's image flickered. Lightning crackled across the sky.

"That's my cue," Mars said. "Until next time, Romans. Do not disappoint me!"

The god erupted in flames, and then he was gone. **That's necessary.**

Reyna turned toward Frank. Her expression was part amazement, part confusion, part nausea, like she'd finally managed to swallow that mouse. **This is why I shouldn't skip stuff; like, seriously, what the fuck? When'd she eat a mouse?** She raised her arm in a Roman salute. " _Ave_ , Frank Zhang, son of Mars."

The whole legion followed her lead, but Frank didn't want their attention. His perfect night had been ruined.

Mars was his father. The god of war was sending him to Alaska. Frank had been handed more than a spear for his birthday. He'd been handed a death sentence. **Fucking drama queen.**

 **3rd Person P.O.V.**

Once everyone left to do **who cares?** Reyna walked over to Lily.

"Who are you?" Reyna asked.

"Huh. Weird. Could've sworn I said that I was Lily."

"How did you come here, and why?"

"I teleported here; I came here because the plot demanded it."

"'The plot demanded it.'" Reyna repeated.

"Yeah. I'm just a half-blood traveller, much like Nico. Only difference is I'm basically God here. Well, see ya," Lily said, teleporting away, leaving Reyna in silence and shock.

 **Skip to page 453 (I skipped this far? Jesus, it's been way too long since I've done anything with this.)**

 **Frank's P.O.V.**

Percy gazed at the ranks of the ghostly Roman. "Against a small army? Sure, no problem."

"Then I've got Golden Boy," Hazel said.

"Do you want me to help with the army or the giant?" asked a girl who'd appeared out of nowhere.

"For Hades' sake, Lily! Stop doing that!" Percy yelled as the three of them jumped in surprise.

"Sorry. I mean not really," Lily replied.

"She a friend?" Frank asked.

"Kind of. How about you help with both of them?" Percy suggested to her.

"Alright, why not."

Hazel and her charge the giant.

 **Yadda yadda, blah blah and stuff. We're skipping to 483. Lily didn't do shit because she's stupid and boring. She just told me to go fuck myself. I'm considering it.**

The campers cheered. As Percy and Mrs. O'leary charged onward, the entire cohort followed―forty extremely shiny gold-plated warriors screaming for blood. Lily flew up next to Percy as he rode.

"I guess I should actually help this time. It's more of life or death thing for you guys, not a quest. Well, alright."

She flew ahead of him and all the enemies she passed over either froze, burned, or fell to the ground twitching. When she reached Polybotes, she lightly flicked his head and he flew backwards.

Meanwhile, **they were charging centaurs and shit. GOD this is gonna take me all fucking year. Once we get into House of Hades this'll actually become fun and I'll be willing to do it without having to look longingly at reviews, wishing I could get that love I.R.L. Anyway.**

But Percy had only one goal. He pointed at the giant. "You. Me. To the finish."

"Here, let me make you more ridiculous," Lily said, landing next to me. She grabbed Riptide, and the blade suddenly had fire on it. And lightning. "Have fun," she said as she flew off.

 _Eh_ , Percy thought. _I've seen weirder_.

 **More skippies! Yay! No one really cares about this shit lol. Page 507. Almost done. Just a bit more, me. You got this.**

"Why should we trust these Greeks?" Octavian was saying. **That works shockingly well considering I just skipped.**

He'd been pacing the senate floor for five minutes, **I've paced around a room for 20 minutes, so HA!** Going on and on, trying to counter what Percy had told them about Juno's plan and the Prophecy of Seven.

 **Yadda Yadda.**

"The camp is safe," Octavian continued. "I'll be the first to congratulate our heroes for bringing back the legion's eagle and so much Imperial gold! Truly we have been blessed with good fortune. But why do more? Why tempt fate?"

"I'm glad you asked." Percy stood, taking the question as an opening.

Octavian stammered. "I wasn't―"

"Octavian, shut the FUCK up! Literally no one likes you!" Lily stated.

Octavian turned to her and attempted to form words while the senate snickered, some even totally laughing.

"Go sit down like the little bitch you are and let the giant slayers do the fucking talking."

Octavian was in such shock he just did what she said as most of the senate burst out laughing.

Once every had calmed down, Percy started. "Lily, as much appreciated as that may have been for some of us, if you'd be quiet until these people know enough about you that they'd probably attempt to kill you, we'd appreciate it."

"Alright." She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

"Okay, ahem… well… onto the original topic. Gaea is waking. We;ve defeated two of the giants, but it's still just the beginning. THe real war is going to take us to Rome, and eventually Greece."

 **Alright, blah blah blah.**

As the trio of friends walked out with everyone else, Lily decided to break the fourth wall.

"It's been so fucking long since you updated this story I don't even remember what happened in _The Lost Hero_.

 **Yeah, me neither. Gotta take a break from my Undertale A.U. and video games at some point in my life.**

"Yeah, sure. The other three books gonna be this short?"

 **Fucked if I know. I guess I got lucky with this one. Fifth one will have a metric fuck ton squared more though.**

"Great…" she sighed.

 **Isn't it?**


End file.
